


more than art

by IridescentAesthete



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Arcades, Art, Light Angst, Love at First Sight, M/M, Mentioned Moon Taeil, Mentioned NCT Dream Ensemble, Mentioned Suh Youngho | Johnny, Minor Character(s), No Smut, Painting, Park Jisung (NCT) is Whipped, Single Parents, Strangers to Lovers, Swearing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-23
Updated: 2020-11-23
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:33:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,099
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27680764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IridescentAesthete/pseuds/IridescentAesthete
Summary: jisung is a street artist with impressive photographic memory—and lately, he can't remember anything but that boy at the arcade.
Relationships: Lee Donghyuck | Haechan/Mark Lee, Lee Jeno/Na Jaemin, Park Jisung/Zhong Chen Le
Kudos: 15





	more than art

**Author's Note:**

> the tag about light angst only applies to jaemin's retelling of markhyuck's love life! the angst has no direct correlation to any of the other characters in this fic.
> 
> jisung and chenle are juniors, nominjun are seniors, and markhyuck are graduated (same year). there will be no sexual content in this fic as most of the characters are minors.

"tonight is on me, boys! knock yourselves out, alright?" jaemin belts as they push through the arcade doors. the group whoops and snickers as jaemin slips a credit card out of his pocket and hands it to the cashier, who rolls his eyes at the noise.

"with how loud you rascals are, i might as well switch my days. you do this every saturday." jaemin chuckles at the blue-haired boy's comments and smirks at him.

"call me a rascal all you want, je-no-lee, but you and i both know you would miss me way too much, hm?" jaemin teases, leaning against the glass display. the cashier, jeno, sighs and punches in some numbers as he glances around the arcade. for thieves, of course.

"i wouldn't miss you in the slightest, jae-min-na. nothing but a sly fox in a town of mice," he remarks, glaring at the latter. jaemin smiles and shakes his head.

"i won't be too loud today if you give me my arcade cards and a kiss on the cheek," jaemin offers, resting his chin on his hand. jeno, albeit typically stubborn with his partner's requests, sighs and lands a fleeting kiss on jaemin's cheek, handing him both the cards and his credit card.

"you're a devil, jaemin," jeno mumbles, tossing the printed receipt in the trashcan nearby.

"you know it, baby!" jaemin snaps his fingers, walking backwards towards his group. jeno simply shakes his head and chuckles at the loud yet familiar presence.

"hey, na, can you watch where you're going, maybe?" donghyuck scolds, dodging jaemin's lousy steps. the oldest sneakily takes an arcade card and steals a few bills from jaemin's pocket as he stumbles and knocks into jisung, who rubs at his head at the impact.

"why am i always the one who ends up injured?" jisung complains, lightly shoving at jaemin's shoulder. his two older friends cackle at his misfortune, then proceed to pamper the youngest with kisses and hair ruffles.

to put it simply, this is the usual. donghyuck picks the two high schoolers up from their homes in his run-down truck, always with a grocery bag full of chips and hot dogs paid for by his convenience store boyfriend, mark, then drives them all downtown so they can paint the alleyways pretty colors. every saturday is the usual, and jisung hasn't seen that change since the trio first started their street art adventures. he doesn't really want it to change, not yet at least.

that being said, he really isn't prepared when a figure catches his attention from the corner of his eye.

they're gathered around the basketball game, donghyuck frantically flicking balls into the moving hoop as jaemin nags at his "bad technique" and refuses to play the game himself. jisung is folding up his line of tickets when a buzzer sounds a few machines down.

"kid… i don't think we need to keep playing. i've lost to you four times now!" a voice whines. the boy celebrating, whose back of his head is the only visual jisung has of him, joyously laughs and pulls the victim into a quick hug of remorse.

"guanheng, we have to do this, remember? sports fest is in a week and your one flaw is that you can't aim," the boy speaks, voice ringing in jisung's head. the presumably older student sighs and begins conversing with the boy in mandarin, to which jisung begins to lose interest due to his very limited knowledge of the language.

his interest piques again, however, when he hears the boy at the machine laugh boisterously, and he instinctively turns towards the sound.

there, laughing his heart out in front of a basketball arcade machine, is the most gorgeous being jisung has ever laid eyes upon in his entire life.

jaemin attempts to tap jisung out of his stupor and says some words to him, but the younger can't even register the phrases as he watches the boy and his friend trade prizes for tickets. his skin is, for one, perfect, and highlighted by the soft neon pink lights above the arcade's giant display of stuffed animals. he can see the dark brown eyes that twinkle and the nose that scrunches when the box of sweetarts meets his fingers, coupled with the blinding smile that makes the boy seem brighter than the glass display's white LED lightstrips. donghyuck waves his hand in front of jisung's face just as the door shuts and the pair is gone.

"dude. are you okay?" donghyuck asks. jisung blinks the blur away and stutters at the event, glancing down to see his clutter of tickets on the ground.

"sungie… did you just fall in love or something?" jaemin teases, picking up the tickets for the youngest. he hands them to jisung, who simply clears his throat and folds them back into a clump. he shakes his head as he glances around the arcade confusedly, then sighs.

"no fucking clue." donghyuck nods and slips the arcade cards into his wallet, shoving it back into his pocket.

"let's just forget about it, grab our prizes, and head home," he notes, "don't get caught up on some boy you've never met, jisung." jaemin flinches at the statement and shoots an apologetic look at jisung, who doesn't know what else to do but frown back.

the trio grabs their tickets and gathers their prizes—a pair of plastic sunglasses for jaemin, two teddy bears for donghyuck, and for jisung, a box of sweetarts.

the following week turns out to be a living hell for park jisung.

the junior is struggling to keep on top of his homework, distracted by the thought of the arcade boy and his smile. he hasn't finished his essay for history yet, and it's due tomorrow night. he's pretty sure he spent his entire lunch break sketching the boy by his photographic memory alone. during pastels, he looked at the reference more than once, which was extremely rare for the young prodigy. when the teacher commented on it, jisung made the excuse that he was taking a more "realistic approach" to today's lesson, to which the teacher simply quirked a brow and moved on. it was clear that jisung was obscured by the image of the arcade boy, so when his dad confronted him about his assignments that week, he made it his mission to get the boy out of his head the only way he could: by finding him in real life.

"no."

"but hyuck," jisung whined, stomping a booted foot on the ground of his front entrance, "this is the only way i can save myself! i have to meet that kid." donghyuck sighs and runs a hand down his face, eyes flickering around his youngest friend and his typical painting outfit.

"and how the hell do you plan to do that? i hate to break it to you, jisung, but this is a guy you saw once. you don't know his name, his age, where he goes to school, what kind of kid he is—you don't know anything about him, jisung. how the hell are you going to find a person whose face is the only thing you recognize?" donghyuck lectures. jisung shakes his head in denial, arms crossed over his chest.

"i'm going to paint his face somewhere, and hope he sees it and wonders who made it," jisung curtly explains. a stern look shoots from before him, directed at a determined jisung.

"life isn't a movie, sung. how can you be so sure he's gonna look for you? what if it just creeps him out?" the older begins to raise his tone. jisung refuses to shrink.

"i'm just saving myself, hyuc—"

"you're not saving yourself, you're being selfish, jisung. think about what you're saying right now before you ask me for another favor," donghyuck hisses, turning and walking back to his truck.

jisung closes the door and frustratedly kicks off his boots, grunting and stomping back to his room.

for the first time in a few days, jisung has more than one thought on his mind, except this time, they aren't organized side by side. they're layered on top of each other in a jumbled mess—a jumbled mess of his friends' skin tones and that arcade boy's pearly white smile, topped with a small tint of dark brown eyes and a box of sweetarts.

it's then that jisung lets the anger turn to drive, and that drive turns into a bike ride to the city.

jisung taps his phone, estimating his time. it's a little past midnight (which is probably terrible for tomorrow's calculus quiz), so he has about five hours to bike downtown, paint a relatively small painting of the arcade boy, and get back in time to get even an hour of sleep in before getting ready for school.

it's not very tight for an artist like jisung, but considering he has to pedal rather than nap in a truck, it might turn out to be worse.

jisung shuffles to his desk and slips on his familiar painting outfit, a giant white sweatshirt with remnants of past art lingering on it, including the rustic orange he mixed for a mural the boys painted the other week and the blaring red he used for a superhero's cape the past weekend. he notices that the bottoms of his pants seem to be higher than usual. maybe he grew? he wouldn't know—he's gotten so tall over the past two years that any added centimeter isn't significant.

he swipes at the fringe that sinks down from the beanie on his head and tugs at the sleeves of the long-sleeved shirt under his hoodie. a sigh leaves his lips as he stares at himself in the mirror, impressed by his willingness to go out and paint, but not to stay home and study.

oh, what love does to you.

jisung packs his paints and instruments in his backpack and tip-toes to the front door, slipping on his black boots and glancing back at his father's door one last time.

before the parent can even snore again, the door locks and jisung is sitting atop his bike.

the teen whips his phone out and texts the not-angry friend, figuring that if jisung was going to get in any trouble, someone should be there to come with.

me:  
nana wanna come dt? late night paint today, v small

nana:  
Are you aware that its midnight  
Oh late night okay got it  
Whos driving u? Hyuckie?

me:  
i'm biking  
f u for not having a license   
but only today bc i rlly don't care what u do w ur driving life

nana:  
Aww love u too sungie  
Need me to bring anything?

jisung glances at his front door and contemplates if he should go back in for a snack.

me:  
bring snackz

nana:  
Anything for u sungie <3  
Meet u there!

with that, jisung shuts his phone off and makes for the road on his bicycle, ignoring the stinging of the wind in his eyes and focusing on the moonlit streets before him.

when jisung arrives, jaemin is already slumped against the wall where they usually park, blowing bubbles from a wand.

"oh. you're here. that didn't take you as long as i expected," jaemin backhandedly compliments, screwing the wand back onto the bubbles. jisung groans as jaemin laughs and pats him on the back.

"i'm teasing, i'm teasing. let's get on with this paint job, shall we? i'm curious as to what has you out here on a thursday night—well, friday morning." jisung hums and leads jaemin to the wall he wants to paint as they nibble on beef jerky.

the arcade is closed and powered down by this hour, but jisung can still make out the silhouette of the giant lettering and the infamous superhero that leans against it.

"ah, i see what's going on here," jaemin voices, relatively quiet due to the hour, "you're here to paint that arcade boy from the other day, huh?" jisung sighs and nods, setting his bag down at the corner of the next alleyway—specifically, the one in the direction that duo walked after leaving the arcade.

"and you want him to see it and look for you, too?"

a nod.

"and you had to bike because donghyuck lee refused to drive you for something so 'selfish'?"

a moment of processing, then a hesitant nod. jisung shoves the wrapper of his beef stick in one of the pockets on his backpack and unzips it to dig in for his supplies as jaemin sets his own down and pulls out a few of his spray cans. he barely uses them, but he figured if this was a late-night run, he would experiment while people weren't watching. jaemin retrieves an extra respiratory mask for jisung to keep nearby in case the aerosol gets out of his control.

"i know he's being pretty reasonable, sungie, but he also went through something completely different than you. it really sucks that mark blew him off for so long, so just understand that he's a little more sensitive to the relationship between romance and time, alright?" jaemin pats jisung on the back, tucking a few hairs out of his face. jisung turns and quirks a brow at him as he surveys the concrete wall before him. he primed it the weekend prior so he could paint a cat for jeno, but that plan was clearly out of the window.

"blew him off? since when?" he asks, "i thought they've been together since they first met?" jaemin hums and shakes his head, eyes shutting at the distant memory.

"before you moved here, hyuck and mark weren't on great terms. hyuck was moving too fast and mark wanted to take it super slow, so they got into a lot of arguments about it, especially since mark's parents were pushing them to break up because of their different views. that, and they were a tad bit new to accepting homosexuality as a whole. but, mostly because of the differing views.

"mark wanted love, and he wanted it from hyuck, but he was scared they would fall out of it just as fast. his parents thought the same thing, and they thought being with hyuck was making him stress out about it more. he was starting to fail classes, and that was the last straw. broke them up with no remorse. even went as far as asking the teachers to keep them split because they were becoming 'aggressive' towards each other.

"hyuck's parents didn't really care, they just wanted hyuck to be in love. hyuck tried to explain that he needed to get mark to understand him, to see his side of things, but his parents constantly brushed it off and said they should just make up already, that it wasn't a big deal, or that hyuck should just comply. that really set him off, i think. he spent multiple nights ranting over that part." jisung hums as he crosses his legs and listens intently, jaemin following suit.

"the whole thing really broke them apart. physically and figuratively. i'd never seen mark lee cry in fury before that time period, but i witnessed it one day. at a damn playground. i was just a freshie chilling by the swings with my best bud and his, at the time, boyfriend, and they got into an argument. right on top of the woodchips!" jisung chuckles and opens jaemin's box of crackers.

"that was one of their worst arguments—involved tears, yelling, kids leaving the park, and possibly a slap in the face. but that's not important. by the end of that day, they were completely split by both of their parents. i'm guessing mark's parents didn't like the five-star on his cheek at all, and donghyuck's were tired of seeing him cry over a boy he had only met about a month and a half ago. that split lasted, like, two or three months? then they met up after mark texted him saying he wanted to talk, and they actually talked, then from there things kind of went their own pace. they took it day by day, which was really nice to see, and eventually the days turned into months, then you moved here! and that's their love story," jaemin finishes, mouth full of cracker crumbs. jisung hums and tucks the box away, squirting the last colors onto his palette before tossing the acrylics by his bag.

"surprised i didn't hear that story until now. hasn't it been, like, four years?" jisung inquires, mixing a few colors for the arcade boy's skin tone. jaemin sighs and swallows down his cracker crumbs, sipping on his water and pulling on his gloves to paint.

"hyuck doesn't like talking about it, and neither does mark. they learned from it, but they don't want to revisit it. this is why i never brought it up with all three of us together.

"that's also why i want you to be really careful with how you handle this with him. it still hurts even me to think about how hard he cried over that ordeal. i really thought he wouldn’t be affected by what i said about falling in love..." jaemin notes, slipping the respiratory mask over his head.

"i'll head over there to spray so you can paint without getting aerosol in your eyeballs. think over all that while you're at it, hm?" he voices through his mask. jisung hums and nods, outlining his vision of the boy's face with the skin color.

"yeah. thank you," he smiles. he can't quite see his friend send one back, but he can see the eyes crinkle up and can feel that jaemin is a little happier after their discussion.

before jisung can even blink, he realizes he already sketched out the entire scene on the grey wall in pencil as jaemin was talking—a boy highlighted by neon pink lights looking up at a shelf lined with plushies.

“by the way, jisungie,” jaemin speaks from a few feet away. jisung looks up at him from his palette of colors.

“i’m really glad you want to find him. feelings that stem purely from your observations about the world… it makes your art feel a little more raw, don’t you think?” he cocks his head sideways and turns to bring his cans over to his own spot down the alleyway.

jisung can only smile at his back before he returns to his canvas, strokes of pink, blue, and brown decorating the grey concrete.


End file.
